


Stung into Life

by alltoseek



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Backstory, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 07:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12601044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek
Summary: “Hey, dude, I thought you were gonna enlist?”“Soldiers are a bunch of drunken assholes,” scoffed John. “Fuck that shit.”





	Stung into Life

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my betas, feroxargentea and aclyone301.

John’s mother was persuaded to give him up for adoption so he could grow up an American citizen. She was deported shortly after she gave birth, but not before naming him Jesús.

Well, that was his birth mother, anyway. His adoptive mother changed his name, of course.

His father was in the Army. Both of them. The first took off before he was born. The second wasn’t around much either, being deployed time and again to various posts overseas. When he completed his last term, having survived four tours, he managed to get himself killed within four months of arriving home.

John didn’t think much of fathers, in general.

 

~{``}~{``}~{``}~

 

John’s favorite games growing up were guns. You could call it Cops and Robbers, or Cowboys and Indians, or Army, or Spies, he didn’t care, so long as it had guns in it. If it didn’t, he brought a gun into it anyway.

“Bang! You’re out!” yelled Johnny.

The other boy looked incredulous. “There’s no guns in Hide and Seek, dummy! You hafta tag me!”

“I tagged you with my bullet!” Johnny laughed.

The boy rolled his eyes. “Something real.”

The next round, Johnny threw a small rock at the boy, tagging him quite accurately.

That was another call home.

 

~{``}~{``}~{``}~

 

In Little League Johnny threw such hard pitches that most kids stayed far away from the plate. There were a lot of strikeouts but a fair number of walks. After the third kid got beaned (it took six games to get to that third kid, but still, the boy had needed an x-ray afterward) his coach moved him to outfield. “You’ve got the arm to get the ball all the way to home plate.”

He did, but unfortunately the catcher inadvertently used his face instead of his mitt.

That was another call to his mother. “Maybe he’s not ready for baseball,” she said.

“Maybe baseball’s not ready for him.”

 

“I love your attitude, Johnny,” said his football coach, “but at this level there’s no tackling.”

“Okay,” he sighed.

“Johnny!” yelled the coach after the next play.

“I didn’t tackle him!”

“There’s no pushing, either!”

“Where’s the fun in this stupid game?”

Taking a tip from the Little League incident, the football coach put Johnny in at quarterback.

 

~{``}~{``}~{``}~

 

In the high school counselor’s office, John was not happy. “What the fuck do I need to know fucking Shakespeare for anyway? I’m gonna go into the fucking Army.”

“You need a high school diploma to enlist, John.”

“Then I’ll fucking get a fucking GED.”

“There’s no need for all the swearing, Johnny,” said his mother patiently.

“Dad fucking swore all the fucking time.”

“I thought your father wasn’t at home that often?”

John gave the counselor a withering glare. “Oh really? I hadn’t noticed. Thanks for letting me know.”

 

It was a long four years.

 

Halfway through, John discovered the mellowing influence of weed and floated through his classes in a cloud of apathy.

“Hey, dude, I thought you were gonna enlist?”

“Soldiers are a bunch of drunken assholes,” scoffed John. “Fuck that shit.”

Several years later it was a choice of drunken assholes in the Army or sober assholes in jail. John picked the Army, because at least he’d get paid for his trouble.

The Army knocked him out of his apathetic haze and into an angry soldier. Then they gave him a target for his rage.

He was thrust into a war zone and all that fighting he thought he’d been doing for his life was just so much chickenshit. This was real. His platoon depended on him.

 

Four tours later, he was back home and bored out of his skull.

 

His latest stunt didn’t work out any better than the previous ones had.

“All right, soldier,” said the pretty nurse, as she finished taping his ribs. The _very_ pretty nurse. “But why did you come here instead of going to the clinic on base?”

“‘Cause my CO said if I pulled any more stupid shit I’d be on KP all day and cleaning toilets all night for a month.” John’s smile wavered nervously and he chuckled softly to cover his awkwardness.

“Well, I’m glad you came here for treatment, at least,” she said. “But you have to stop with the stupid shit. What if you do worse than black those pretty eyes? You don’t want to break those gorgeous cheekbones of yours.”

John smiled and looked away. He hoped she couldn’t see the flush reddening under his tanned dark skin.

“Why do you pull stupid shit, anyway?”

“What else is there to do?”

The pretty nurse smiled, making her even prettier. “I can think of a few things. Give me a call when you’ve finished your month’s penance.”

It wasn’t until after he’d watched her hips swing out the door that John noticed his wide grin had stung the bruising on his face back to life.


End file.
